When Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Island Thunder was released for the Xbox, the PlayStation 2 crowd felt left out.  While the PS2 did get the original Ghost Recon, gamers and fans of the PC great have found nothing but disappointment.  For one thing, it lacked total immersion and its impressive graphics.  Yet the most important element that was overlooked was the online features.  Let’s face it, Ghost Recon is a great single player game but who doesn’t fancy several multiplayer matches with gamers from all over?  So it was with great pleasure to find that Ghost Recon: Jungle Storm not only brings us new campaigns along with Island Thunder’s many missions but also an online multiplayer mode.  Yet will gamers embrace this squad-based action game with open arms after the first disappointment?  Please read on.

Island Thunder puts the Ghosts, a special elite squad of specialists, in a very interesting scenario.  Cuba’s dictator, Fidel Castro, has finally smoked his last cigar and--in the wake of his death--an opposing group backed up by Colombian drug cartels is threatening the country’s first real Democratic election.  The Ghosts are inserted into Cuba and help bring down the terrorist cells and its leader, Ariel Prego.  Jungle Storm takes place directly after the events in Island Thunder as the Ghosts attempt to take down the narco-terrorists group that had helped Prego back in Cuba. 

As you might already have suspected, these two scenarios mean plenty of missions and both Island Thunder and Jungle Storm see a pleasant number of interesting missions with multiple objectives.  Island Thunder, for example, has missions that have you infiltrating a tobacco plantation or seizing control of a terrorist-infested camp.  In Jungle Storm, you’ll be in the jungles of Colombia rescuing UN hostages or blowing up a railroad station.  And, like most Ghost Recon games, you’ll have multiple objectives to complete using teams of specialists (e.g. snipers, demolitions experts, heavy machine gunners etc). 

Aside from the Campaign missions (the game’s story mode); the game also includes tactical exercises that do a far better job of teaching you the controls than the basic training feature.  Quick Mission comes with four different mission types: Mission, Recon, Firefight and Defend.  While Quick Mission comes with a few maps, you get to unlock more by completing the Campaign missions.  This is also good training for the game’s online mode.

When the original Ghost Recon was released on the PS2 it completely omitted a few features that made the game such a hit on the Xbox but what was really unforgivable was the fact that the game failed to include an online multiplayer mode.  Lucky for us, Ubisoft has learned from its mistake and included an online multiplayer mode with eight different game modes plus four cooperative game modes.  While the game allows up to eight players (unlike the Xbox Ghost Recon games that allow up to sixteen players at once) to take each another on using a Broadband connection, gamers will encounter a number of stutters and delays during a match.  The good news, though, is that you can communicate with other players using your USB headset so coordinating attacks with other gamers is great.  You can also play this game with a friend in split-screen fashion using a single PS2.

Now on to the bad news, Jungle Storm’s PS2 controls leave much to be desired.  The Ghost Recon games have always strayed away from the usual first-person shooter schematics and thus this is the reason you don’t get to see the weapon you’re holding like Rainbow Six 3.  This makes for precise sniper-like shots but somehow this just doesn’t come off as smoothly here.  You’ll notice that zooming in on a target is so ungraceful that many times you’ll lose sight of said target.  It also doesn’t help that your enemy doesn’t move as naturally as they should.  At one point I witnessed an enemy move jerkily from one spot only to magically appear closer.

The biggest flaws, though, come in the form of the enemy AI.  You’ll find a few who are intelligent enough to respond to your attack.  Some might take cover by laying flat on their stomachs while others might use the environment as cover.  Then again, you’ll find a group of enemies that decide to rush at you in a mad rage or find cover behind an open window.  There was even a time when I had crouched into a room with a terrorist looking directly at me as he said “I thought I heard something.”

Unfortunately, Jungle Storm is quite an eyesore.  Part of the reason gamers will not feel fully immersed in the game’s environments is the fact that the surroundings lack detail and sharp textures.  Flat grasslands look blurry, jagged boulders look too square-like and you don’t even want to know what I think of the trees.  Each location does have its own unique feel so it doesn’t fail in giving the illusion that you are scrambling down the streets of Cuba or the humid jungles of Colombia.  And you’ll forgive me for saying this but the character model of our beloved Ghosts look so awkward that it doesn’t fail to produce a laugh out of me as I watch them waddle their way towards a destination.  Your weapon zoom is also not as smooth as it should be and this will, no doubt, lead to gamers loosing the enemy they were going to target.

Something that the Ghost Recon games never fail to impress gamers is the sound effects.  The minute your team steps out into the field, you’ll be surrounded by a wall of detailed sound effects.  Close your eyes and you’ll hear the chirping of crickets or the buzzing of other insect life in the hot Cuban tobacco fields.  If you leave your Bravo team behind, you’ll hear it when they encounter the enemy.  In the distance you’ll hear their gunfire while you continue to make your move.  There is a musical score but that can only be found in cut scenes after accomplishing missions and the menu screens.

It isn’t very hard to point out Jungle Storm’s weaknesses and there are plenty of them in this game that just makes this one too difficult to really enjoy.  While the missions are plentiful in both Jungle Storm and Island Thunder, it lacks the sense of realism and the total immersion of the Xbox Ghost Recon games.  The game does win points for including the USB headset in the single player mode and for the addition of online multiplayer modes, but this is still not enough to recommend it to anyone since SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs does all of this so much better. 

Gameplay: 6.0
The game offers plenty of missions that take you from the streets of Havana to a nest of Colombian terrorists holed up in a drug lab.  Once again, whether you’re defending a position or getting into a serious firefight, gamers just have to admire the coordinated attack and defend plans of your squad.  Issuing commands to your AI troops is also a nice touch.  Unfortunately, the enemy AI is so dumb that sneaking up behind them isn’t very hard to do.

Graphics: 6.0
As far as the graphics are concerned, Jungle Storm would have made a very impressive PSOne game but the PS2 is capable of offering so much more in terms of graphical detail and smoother textures.  New to the Ghost Recon games is the motion blur when you get shot and it’s actually a nice touch.  Unfortunately the rest of the game makes character models and environmental details seem so blocky that it’s difficult to really get into the action when shrubs look crudely rendered.  This also makes it hard to really distinguish from things such as bushes from a crouching enemy.  At one point, I spent an entire ammo clip on a giant leaf thinking it was an enemy.  

Sound: 7.8
One of the things the game handles well is the sound effects.  Much like Rainbow Six 3, you’ll be literally surrounded by sounds that add to the realism.  Whether it’s out in a field with the call of various birds all around you or the throaty call of some frog in the Colombian marshes, the detailed sound does a great job of making surprise attacks from the enemy the kind that quickly snaps you into attention.

Difficulty: Medium
The game offers a few difficulty setting that do a good job of challenging already experienced gamers but compared to other squad-based games on the PS2, Jungle Storm suffers from erratic enemy AI behavior.  There are times when the enemy feels well coordinated and take cover in all the right places, but then again there are times when they run around like chickens with their heads chopped off or make suicidal dashes towards you.  The mission objectives are also not hard to piece together.

Concept: 7.8
It’s nice to see that the PS2 was not completely forgotten seeing as Island Thunder had been a Xbox favorite for a long while now.  Jungle Storm offers all the Island Thunder campaign missions plus the new Jungle Storm missions that pretty much continue where Island Thunder left off.  You can also use a USB headset to issue commands to your troops in the single player mode like in the SOCOM games (although half the time they don’t understand your commands).  It just goes to show you that good things come to those who wait.

Multiplayer: 7.5
You can play cooperatively with a friend in split-screen fashion but the real treat comes in the form of the game’s newly included online multiplayer mode.  The online multiplayer mode teams you up with or puts you up against up to eight players.  There are four co-op games (Recon, Firefight, Defend and Mission) that are found in the single player game but the real action is in the eight other play modes.  There’s Last Man Standing, Hamburger Hill, Search and Rescue, Domination and Seize.  You can also go up against other gamers in a solo mission-type that revolves around sharp shooting and a stylized game of “tag” called Mouse Hunt.

Overall: 7.0
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Jungle Storm has an abundance of fun missions and it now has an online multiplayer mode, but its rough spots will leave a bad taste in the mouths of fans of the series.  Never mind the extremely poor quality of its visuals, the game’s enemy AI and its many bugs will not fail to frustrate gamers.  Rent this one over the weekend for its decent online mode, but be prepared to be disappointed of the single player mode.